


Good Omens collection

by Selenae



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 09:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19331569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenae/pseuds/Selenae
Summary: Missing scenes, backstory, and other musings featuring the Ineffable Husbands.Each chapter is a separate short story. They can be very different in tone.1. Crowley's first act of kindness was done out of spite.2. How does an angel tell someone he loves them, when they can't just SENSE love like any reasonable being?3. A quick moment that definitely happened.4. The symbolism of the rainbow has changed.





	1. Expectations

In the beginning…

The first-ever rain begins as they watch the two humans depart from Eden. Crowley instinctively shuffles closer to the angel and ducks his head under the nearest white wing. The wing lifts, rotates to make a better shield against the falling water. Crowley is surprised.

He has been among demons for so long. He has forgotten how to expect kindness. If he’d tried to take shelter under another demon’s wing, that demon would have shoved him away. In fact, Crowley can’t quite figure why he looked to the angel for aid in the first place. Perhaps he acted on a knowledge so deep that even the time since the fall hasn’t erased it: _this is what angels do_. They offer little acts of service to each other.

Aziraphale probably expects the demon to reciprocate. Ha! Crowley is pleased to shatter that ridiculous assumption. Let this be a lesson on the nature of demons.

Except the angel is just standing there serenely. He doesn’t even abandon Crowley to go seek his own shelter under the trees. The rain falls unhindered on his curly hair and is beginning to soak into his weak human-ish body. He _doesn’t_ seem to expect anything in return, and yet he offers more than what Crowley dared to steal. Apparently he does know enough about demons to expect only selfishness.

And Crowley thinks, well fuck THAT expectation instead.

He cranes his black wing around under Aziraphale’s white one and up over the angel’s head. Aziraphale blinks at the lack of rain. Looks up. Looks over to Crowley’s face. And smiles.


	2. True Love

Angels can sense love.

One of Aziraphale’s guilty indulgences on Earth (though _should_ he feel guilty about this?) is to bask in Crowley’s love for him. That love had grown over the millennia, slowly but inexorably like the drift of a glacier. By now it encompasses the world. Aziraphale wonders sometimes why no one else has remarked on it.

It pains him that Crowley cannot feel Aziraphale’s reciprocal love for him. The angel tries to communicate it in human ways - in words, in smiles, in actions - while still being subtle enough to avoid incurring the wrath of Heaven and Hell. But being merely _told_ something doesn’t generate the same deep-down certainty as observing it with your own senses. 

He wonders whether Crowley ever doubts.

~

Demons can sense lies.

It’s not always as useful as you might think. Humans lie all the time for all sorts of petty reasons, and recognizing a lie doesn’t tell you what the truth is. Sure, it’s obvious what’s really going on when a woman with a Nazi accent claims to work for MI5. But when a man says “I’m just standing here minding my own business” he could be up to absolutely anything.

Crowley observes as Aziraphale picks up the habit of lying. It starts with polite white lies - “this soup tastes good”, or “no, your child hasn't ruined my new cloak.” As humans grow skeptical of angels walking among them, there are many lies to support Aziraphale’s cover identities. Later there are outright selfish lies, such as “that very interesting book you requested isn’t in yet.” 

They’re all small lies. Just part of communicating in human language. None conceal a truth that really matters. Except for one particular subject where the lies grow bigger and bigger:

“He’s not my friend”  
“we don’t know each other”  
“I don’t need you”  
“I don’t even like you!”

(That last lie, in the bandstand, bowls Crowley over with its magnitude just as much as the love in Tadfield had stunned Aziraphale.)

Crowley revels in the big lies. Every time they meet he needles Aziraphale until he extracts at least one indignant denial. To him they shout:

“we _are_ friends.”  
“I know you better than anyone.”  
“I _do_ need you”  
“I love you.”


	3. Further Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter Concerning the Worlde that Is To Come; Ye Saga Continues

“You _burned_ it?!” cries Aziraphale.

Crowley has to hold him back from smiting Anathema on the spot.


	4. Never Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for discussion of genocide and homophobia. Not at all explicit - shouldn't be worse than the show itself.

“Did you know someone has graffittied the word “homophobe” on your window?” Crowley asks as he lets himself into the bookshop.

Aziraphale sighs. “Oh dear, I’d better clean that off.”

Crowley smirks. “I rather like the indication of how far the tables have turned. Disrespectful vandalism now on the side of the formerly oppressed. But - ”

“We’re still oppressed.” the angel corrects him.

“ - But why _here_? Why _you_? You don’t exactly come off as ‘straight’ even if they can’t recognize you’re a genderless male-bodied being who’s in love with another genderless male-bodied being.”

Aziraphale has to smile at that. Crowley doesn’t use the ‘L’ word very often. Only when he gets so carried away that he forgets to avoid saying it.

But back to the matter at hand - “It’s the rainbows,” Aziraphale explains.

In modern western culture, the rainbow has become a symbol of pride in sexual diversity. The storefronts of London are bedecked in rainbows for the month of June. Multiple neighbors and customers have offered Aziraphale a rainbow banner or the like to hang in his shop. He has refused every time. He has perhaps become a bit brusque in those refusals.

“I _want_ to show support for the community, it’s just… that’s not what a rainbow represents for me. I see them and all I can think of is drowning children. And you know She promised ‘not again’ but it’s been happening again and again and sometimes to precisely those people who are wearing those rainbows for Pride - ”

Crowley pulls his husband close, wraps his long arms around the distressed angel.

“She did say She would never do it again,” he muses into Aziraphale’s hair. “And when all of Heaven and Hell wanted it to happen, it didn’t. Perhaps that’s all she _can_ promise. Humans have free will; if they want to go around killing each other it’s up to other humans to stop them.”

Aziraphale stops trembling. His head comes up, eyes lighting with a fire of determination. 

“Other humans - _and us._ ”

“Hmm?”

“It’s not all dependent on the humans anymore. Now they’ve got you and me on their side. We might not be able to root out all the cruelty from the world, but we can do a lot more than the average person can. It’s down to us to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again.”

Crowley grins approval. “Sounds like a plan. Now, why don’t you get out there and remind people that all love is love, and queerness isn't new, and all that. Meanwhile I will go find some actual homophobes to put the fear of God into.”

They find a solution for the window as well. Instead of a standard rainbow, the graffiti gets replaced by a nonbinary pride flag.


End file.
